


Important people have big desks

by DraconicWolf



Category: RWBY
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 12:51:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13741260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraconicWolf/pseuds/DraconicWolf
Summary: Important people got large desks and empty offices. That was the explanation sweet Penny had given when asked her opinion of General Ironwood. She was most accurate, and at that large desk James sat, graying head in his hands, listening to the click, whirl, and thump of his own body. Nearly half a year since his far younger sister had been torn apart. Since his entire world had gone mad.





	Important people have big desks

Important people got large desks and empty offices. That was the explanation sweet Penny had given when asked her opinion of General Ironwood. She was most accurate, and at that large desk James sat, graying head in his hands, listening to the click, whirl, and thump of his own body. Nearly half a year since his far younger sister had been torn apart. Since his entire world had gone mad. 

With a sigh he moved to look at the framed picture on his desk. An adorable little girl easily recognizable as a younger version of Penny, a less stressed James, Penny’s father and the man who created his prosthetics, and a familiar faunus with a lion’s tail, mane, and name. 

Eyes crinkling as he smiled softly, James traced a gloved finger over the faces of his family, taking an extra moment to look at the man who once could have become his husband. Had he not had the cowardliness of a lion as well. He had been warning Ozpin for years about his ex’s movements and possible motivations, all attempts snubbed as James being sore about their breakup, a breakup he had instigated and planned.

He mentally slapped himself for traveling down memory lane yet again. Once or twice was healthy, but to the extent he was allowing his mind to wander was near all consuming as of late. With a calculated movement, James took out his flask and went to put in the bottom drawer with a lock. He had heard the click of the key when a small siren began to go off within his own head. A familiar beat, the warning of the death of a Guardian. Panicked, he slammed his hand against a hidden button on the desk and toppled the chair hurrying to look at the screen emerging from the floor against the right wall. 

On the flashing red screen was symbols, seven of them. Four maidens, one wizard, and four guardians. The flower, flame, icicle, and sundial. The green gear glowing with a yellow outline, having come back online when the newest reincarnation accepted what he was. The final four, a feather, a riding crop, an axe, and a shield. The shield, once glowing all colours of dust to represent it’s versatility, was grayed in the same way as the flame and icicle.

Memories began flooding back despite his earlier attempt to stop them. A team forming, reluctant and stubborn, something that would never have come together if the war had not gone on for such a length of time. Friends, laughter; a flash of white hair and a glyph, a glinting smile reflected in a halo of water and sand, the protectiveness of the warm sun. The comforting embrace of a young man who saw him and accepted him. His first kiss, fumbling but beautiful. More laughter, getting louder and deeper and darker with age. A scream, a dying breath, their team becoming three and a half. Waking up in a hospital bed to his team broken and scattered around the world, their conscience buried, their brain drowning in alcohol, their heart hidden behind a foreign magician. 

With an anguished cry James Ironwood punched his right hand through the screen in front of him, sending glass and metal scattering across the ground and into the joints of his hand. He fell to his knees, ignoring the marring of his uniform, or the fluids staining his face, only feeling the deep ache in his chest that he would have sworn on his life would never exist at Lionheart’s death. 

But it wasn’t just that. An clip of orange hair and a pink bow flashed across his vision, merging into a rainbow of hues that represented all the people he had ever cared about, all the people that he had ever lost.

The crash of his door opening did not distract him from his pain, though his body did respond to the noise and lifted his head to see who had intruded. Dr. Watts, a man who would by all rights not want to get his hands dirty. Something else must have happened if Salem was finally giving him the go ahead to take out James.

“I’ll enjoy sitting at that oversized desk of yours.” The politician spat at him while aiming his own revolver at his skull. The engraved pattern reflected spots of light, a gift from his partner after their first successful mission. It seemed more fitting than ironic, unlike the words used. An ugly smirk formed on James’ face. “Oversized desks are meant for powerful people.” His blue eyes flickered red for a moment, before he finished quoting his sister. “It’s to remove them from all the people that can take it away.”


End file.
